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5 gallon batch of aerated compost tea = 10 tons or 40 cubic yards of regular composthttp://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/o...739009975.html
A good aerated tea is very economical. 5 gallons can be diluted to biostimulate an entire acre of garden via foliar spraying only. If you soil drench only, it takes at least 15 gallons of tea, before diluting, to cover an acre of garden soil. Also there is enough aerobic bacteria and fungi in a good 5 gallon batch of aerated tea, that is the equivalent of about 10 tons or 40 cubic yards of regular compost!
These homemade aerated compost teas are just as powerful, maybe more powerful, than any commercial natural or organic fertilizer or soil amendment on the market today. And they are a lot cheaper too! So have fun, be creative, and keep on composting! http://www.taunton.com/finegardening...mpost-tea.aspx
But research has shown that a foliar spray of bacteria-dominated compost tea is extremely useful to prevent the foliar diseases that plague most gardens. Thus, most of us need only be concerned with making a bacteria-dominated compost tea.
For bacteria to dominate, compost should be made from a preponderance of green materials. You need a mix of 25 percent high-nitrogen ingredients, 45 percent green ingredients, and 30 percent woody material. High-nitrogen materials include manure and legumes, such as alfalfa, pea, clover, or bean plant residues. Grass clippings from the first two or three cuttings in spring, when the blades are lush and tender, qualify as high-nitrogen; the rest of the season, they're simply green material. Green material includes any green plant debris, kitchen scraps, and coffee grounds, which, although brown in color, contain sugars and proteins that bacteria love. Woody material includes wood chips, sawdust, paper plates and towels, and shredded newspaper.http://www.npr.org/programs/talkingp.../2002/compost/
In the 20th century, compost tea makers preferred the Sock Approach. The recipe went something like this: Fill old sock with compost or manure, immerse sock in pail of water, let steep. When color is sufficiently brown, apply to plants.

But that's way too simple for the 21st century. We now take a more microbially balanced view of things (and, wouldn't you know it, a more marketable one). The Sock Approach, after all, left many with nasty-smelling brews that contained as much bad bacteria as good. So, folks in the field applied themselves to compost tea mixes with just the right combination of microorganisms.

As Elaine Ingham puts it, "Tea works because of the biology in it. If you don't have the necessary biology, you can't get all the benefits."

I just take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with compost and add water.
Then I let it sit overnight.
Next morning I strain it to get the big pieces out.
I then add some sugar or molasses (a hand full) and stir well.
Then add water to top it off.

Then I get my aquarium pump ($1 at garage sale) and a air stone (forgot how much)
I drop the airstone in the bucket tied to a rock to keep it on the bottom.
Turn on pump to bubble air in the mixtire for about 2 days (more or less)

If I'm just feeding plants by pouring it on then I pour a little in every planting container I have and around the plants in the garden. THEN I watter it in right after I pour on the tea.

This mixture can be customized per your needs.
To use as a foliar spray then the last step is to filter it through some cheesecloth so it will not clog the hose end sprayer.

Some folks add nematodes or yeast or some kind of fertilizer even a little ammonia for nitrogen. I have a very healthy compost pile so I don't add much more than sugar and spent grains from my homebrew beer.

Don't add fats or meat to the compost pile as I find it draws mice and other meat eaters, plus it goes rancid and smells bad.

Below is an example of a polysaccharide made from bacteria and a sugar.

Below is an example of a polysaccharide made from bacteria and a sugar. I have found that I can make this with urine and sugar with a bacteria culture used on septic tanks along with water. It jells up in the soil and holds things together and gives great plant growth.

I just use bacteria cultures and yeast with stuff like fine seaweed, molasses and liquid fish meal that I can make myself. Toss in some high grade hydroponics salts and forget about the compost. I do however like to mulch.

Despite its rather alien-sounding name, xanthan gum is as natural as any other fermented corn sugar polysaccharide you can name. Corn syrup, anyone?

Seriously, xanthan gum derives its name from the strain of bacteria used during the fermentation process, Xanthomonas campestris. Xanthomonas campestris is the same bacteria responsible for causing black rot to form on broccoli, cauliflower and other leafy vegetables. The bacteria form a slimy substance which acts as a natural stabilizer or thickener. The United States Department of Agriculture ran a number of experiments involving bacteria and various sugars to develop a new thickening agent similar to corn starch or guar gum. When Xanthomonas campestris was combined with corn sugar, the result was a colorless slime called xanthan gum.

Xanthan gum is considered a polysaccharide in scientific circles, because it is a long chain of three different forms of sugar. What's important to know is that all three of these natural sugars are present in corn sugar, a derivative of the more familiar corn syrup. The Xanthomonas campestris bacteria literally eat a supply of this corn sugar under controlled conditions, and the digestion process converts the individual sugars into a single substance with properties similar to cornstarch. Xanthan gum is used in dairy products and salad dressings as a thickening agent and stabilizer. Xanthan gum prevents ice crystals from forming in ice creams, and also provides a 'fat feel' in low or no-fat dairy products.

Another use for xanthan gum is the stabilization and binding of cosmetic products. One advantage of xanthan gum is that a little goes an incredibly long way. Cosmetic manufacturers add a very small amount of xanthan gum to their cream-based products in order to keep the individual ingredients from separating. Despite the use of bacteria during processing, xanthan gum itself is not generally harmful to human skin or digestive systems, though some individuals may find they are allergic to it. Xanthan gum is often used whenever a gel-like quality is sought.

Xanthan gum is also used as a substitute for wheat gluten in gluten-free breads, pastas and other flour-based food products. Those who suffer from gluten allergies should look for xanthan gum as an ingredient on the label.

One lesser-known use of xanthan gum is in the oil industry. Oil companies often use water as a lubricant for oil well pumps, but regular water is not very thick. A natural thickener such as guar gum or xanthan gum can be added to the water in order to increase its viscosity, or thickness. You could think of this as turning tap water into 10W-40 motor oil. The thickened water keeps the drill parts lubricated and displaces more of the natural oil found in the deposit area.

[Compostteas] homemade compost tea brewer[Compostteas] homemade compost tea brewer ... If we "chat" = "out loud" about what we are doing or hearing, we are going to end up = with some good lessons, ...
lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/compostteas/Week-of-Mon-20020701/000302.html - 9k - Cached - Similar pages

Composting Demonstration SitesComposting Demonstration Sites to Visit .... COMPOST AS TEA: Compost tea is made by combining equal parts of compost and water and letting it sit for a ...
vegweb.com/composting/how-to.shtml - 27k - Cached - Similar pages

UK products and various research (not just UK) at Soil Based OrganismsAnd then there's "compost tea" (not a product) which is widely known and used ... And it appears that the main difference between EM and compost tea is that ...
curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=759815 - 53k - Cached - Similar pages

Message Board - BigPumpkins.comCompost Tea. Subject: is there a substitute for mollasses? ... Search this site alone and you will be reading for the next week. 12/19/2006 9:40:24 PM ...http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/...?b=27&p=181687 - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

Fish turned into a liquid and molasses converts to bacteria

"Don't add fats or meat to the compost pile as I find it draws mice and other meat eaters, plus it goes rancid and smells bad."

Fish turned into a liquid and molasses converts to bacteria and doen't small when used with airation.

[PDF] NaturalRendFS3rdprint color.pmdFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
I was explaining the benefits of large animal composting to a. couple of area farmers and they informed me that they had no. problem disposing of dead cows. ...
compost.css.cornell.edu/naturalrenderingFS.pdf - Similar pages

Whole Animal Composting of Dairy CattleObjectives of this publication are to outline factors that affect proper composting procedures and discuss how to compost cow mortalities on the farm. ...http://www.dairybusiness.com/western...WDBcompost.htm - 26k - Cached - Similar pages

Herd management“A 1200-pound cow has the equivalent of 780 pounds of water in her tissues. .... Composting Dead Livestock: A new solution to an old problem, an Iowa State ...www.dairybusiness.com/northeast/Nov00/recipe.htm - 19k - Cached - Similar pages

WD ArticleBy Carter’s reckoning, the four compost piles on the site contain more than 1000 dead cows and about 30000 chicken carcasses. He said he’s added 400 deer in ...www.rockwaterfarms.com/WDArticle.htm - 19k - Cached - Similar pages

You need two main things to build up soil life being nitrogen and sugar

You need two main things to build up soil life being nitrogen and sugar as this is what soil life is made of. In other words protein.
.................................................. .................................................. ..........................
Organic Molasses - 20 L :: Australian Soil Additives & ProductsFungi tolerate high concentrations of sugar better than bacteria, ... because if you add molasses to grow lots of bacteria, and your soil has poor structure ...http://www.asapsupplier.com/product_...roducts_id/234 - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Soil life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThis is carried out by free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil or water such as Azotobacter, or by those which live in close symbiosis with ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_life - 33k - Cached - Similar pages

Years ago in HI we used to fill 55 gallon drums with compost and water - mostly weeds we plucked from the garden - cover it and let it sit for some days, then put it on the plants. Not nearly as fancy and doodaddy but it sure worked on the bananas and vegetables. I will read some of the links and learn more.

I mentioned meat products as I have seen folks just dump meat scraps and cans of bacon fat on a compost pile. They did not turn the pile like they should have and it was a mess. You have to turn and work the compost piles to get oxygen into the piles for them to decompose properly.

Also, you can add too much sugar too often and it will cause an explosion of bacteria and over time the bacteria will eat up the soil. I add a few table spoons and just use compost tea about every 2 weeks during growing season.

I use the bubbler in the tea so there is enough oxygen in the mix so it will not go anerobic. I also don't let it set as long as 2 weeks. In the spring I also add seaweed as there is a chemical in it that stimulates new root growth (forgot the name).

Manure compost tea is effective on many pests because of certain microorganisms that exist in it naturally. Here's how to make compost tea at home. Use any container but a plastic bucket is easy for the homeowner. Fill the 5-15 gallon bucket half full of compost and finish filling with water. Let the mix sit for 10-14 days and then dilute and spray on the foliage of any and all plants including fruit trees, perennials, annuals, vegetables and roses, and other plants, especially those that are regularly attacked by insects or fungal pests. It's very effective for example on black spot on roses and early blight on tomatoes. How to dilute the dark compost tea before using depends on the compost used. A rule of thumb is to dilute the leachate down to one part compost liquid to four to ten parts water. It should look like iced tea. Be sure to strain the solids out with old pantyhose, cheese cloth, or row cover material. Add two tablespoons of molasses to each gallon of spray for more power. Add citrus oil for even greater pest killing power.

Compost Tea Daily Tip home page June 2005

Organic gardeners have lots of good tools in the form of fertilizers, soil amendments and pest control products with more coming on the market all the time. The best tool and one that can eliminate the use of those nasty chemicals is compost tea. It can be made at home or bought commercially.

Compost tea is not only an effective foliar fertilizer; it has powerful insect and disease control properties. The humic material and microorganisms in compost tea are effective on many pests. Take a look at soilfoodweb.com for the science about compost tea.

Here are directions to make compost tea at home. Fill any container half full of compost and finish filling with water. Add a 1 cup of molasses per 5 gallons. Let the mix sit for 24 hours or 10 - 14 days and then dilute. How much to dilute the dark compost tea before using depends on the compost used. A rule of thumb for the final mix is to dilute the leachate down to look like ice tea.

For more power use an aquarium pump to force pump the air through it and spray on the foliage of any and all plants including roses. Plants regularly attacked by fungal pests like roses and tomatoes will benefit greatly.

We are beginning a major project to use compost tea on our organic farm this year. Last summer we did a test with a local landscape contractor who applied aerated compost tea to test plots over a one month period. These plots showed superior drought resistance and twice the growth as the control plots. This year the outstanding growth has continued. I wish we had started last year with the program but the test did prove that it would be worthwhile to make an investment in our own equipment and we have. I am building a compost tea brewer in a 275 gallon tote and a spray rig for tea with another 275 gallon tote. Hopefully within the month of May I will have treated 28 acres of hay field and 42 acres of pasture with ACT.

For those who would like more information, I recommend Jeff Lowenfel's book, "Teaming with Microbes" and Elaine Ingham's "Compost Tea Brewer's Manual". An investment in a good microscope is a big help. The Yahoo Compost Tea Group is an active support group for equipment manufacturers, landscapers and farmers using compost tea.

For those of you like Jazzdad

For those of you like Jazzdad above below is what you are wanting in the soil. As you can see it is for feeding fish but most of this happens in the soil water film, especially Nematodes. You want the bacteria to breed up in the aerated liquid mix and then before they start to die you need to feed them to the soil where everything eats them and so on.

Look at how infusoria is fed and copy on a bigger scale.

Buy hunic and Fulvic acid as this is what you want out of compost but you get so little. Make sure you are not getting done with rubbish that isn't water solubility.

Fulvic acid (abbreviated FA) is the organic acid of less molecular weight in Humic acid. Because the resource of fulvic acid in China is very rare and manufactured technology is also very difficult. The real fulvic acid in market is very infrequent and the price is also very costly, which the selling price of per kilogram amount to hundreds to thousands yuan, indeed reach to ten thousands yuan. Thus it can be seen, what a rarity fulvic acid is! Since it has indeed many miraculous functions, it has been ranked the second class protected varieties of Chinese Traditional medicine by the National Health Ministry and now has made many kinds of FA medicine preparation, which is promoted and applied in the peking Tongren, Tiantan, Haiding hospital and has remarkable curative effect on many diseases. At the same time, fulvic acid also shows unique functions with applied in cosmetic, health care, agriculture, aquiculture, farming and veterinary etc. For adapting to the application of varies fields, we developed out fulvic acid and ulmic acid series products. Now classify and introduce as follow:
1. Physical and chemical properties
According to many years research, the real fulvic acid can resist acidic medium that pH ＆#118alue is less than two, has small molecular weight (300-500) and many active function groups (total acid radical is 8-10 mg/g), is strong power in anti-acid and anti-hard water and has high biological activity, so its applied effect is further better than humic acid. Because of the costly market price of fulvic acid, for meeting market we develop out ulmin plus fulvic acid series products, which the molecular weight is a bit larger than fulvic acid and is similar physiological activity to FA and can entirely replace fulvic acid in agriculture, farming, medicine. So Ulmin plus fulvic acid is a new product that is worthy of promoting.
2. Main products technique indices
Item Grade Content Anti-acid Water insoluble substances
Fulvic acid Special class FA≥90％ PH＜2 ＜2％
One class FA≥80％ PH＜2.5 ＜3％
Two class FA≥70％ PH＜2.5 ＜5％
Ulmic acid One class UA+FA≥70％ PH＜3 ＜8％
Two class UA+FA≥60％ PH＜3 ＜10％
Three class UA+FA≥50％ PH＜3 ＜12％
3. Function & Applied Scope
In agriculture: Applied it can reduce transpiration as well as fight a drought, improve the activity of enzyme,
Increase chlorophyll, promote metabolism, promote root and growth, prevent diseases and resist biological intimidation, improve quality, increase yield and enhance utilization quotiety of chemical fertilizer and pesticide
In medicine: Fulvic acid is activation agent of varies of cruor gene. It can be oral hemostasis when the stomach, colon,
nephridium and womb bleeds. It can also improve cycle obstacle of the heart, brain and stomach, reduce the viscidity degree of blood plasma and bloodcirculation, has unique operation of activating blood circulation and dispersing blood clots. It can be used for clinical treatment of gastric ulcer, colonitis, mastitis, sugar diabetes, sucker liver and cancer acesodyne etc.
In Health Care and Cosmetics: It can be used for health care beverage, functional foodstuff and cosmetics etc. It is able
to boost up assimilation enginery, recover wound healing up, promote cell to renew, advance immune function, prevent and cure many intestinal diseases and skin diseases and has a little effect on preventing wrinkle, making skin tender and hairdressing.
In Farming and veterinary: The product is used for additive of farming feed, can prevent and cure many intestinal
diseases, strengthen immune function and increase yield livestock and birds; it is used for veterinary, can prevent and
cure enteritis, diarrhea, breathe heabily, astriction, flu, tympanites and eczema etc.
In aquiculture: The product is used for additive of aquatic feed. It has obvious effect on prevention and cure many kinds
of fish diseases, increasing fishes and shrimps survivor ratio, promoting fishes and shrimps growth, purifying and
improving water quality etc.
4. Usage and Dosage:
In agriculture: It is often used for spraying, dipping root and soaking seed which the use concentration is 0.5 percent;In Farming and veterinary: A s feed additive, accession quantity is 0.1 to 0.3 percent;In aquiculture: Accession quantity is 10 to 30 gram in per square water or applied in putting into lurestuff.In Health Care and Cosmetics: concentration in common use is 0.05 to 0.1 percentIn medicine: Tested determinately according to the different diseases and the different way of use medicine.
Above the usage and dosage, just supply reference. Generally speaking, it ought to confirm by test.

Infusoria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaInfusoria are used by owners of aquariums to feed fish fry; linkin fry and davos are just two examples which will require this food to survive the first few ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infusoria - 26k - Cached - Similar pages

How To Buy Infusoria | eHow.comInfusoria are microscopic protozoans used to feed newly hatched fish, called fish fry. Most established home aquariums already contain a quantity of ...www.ehow.com/how_2190910_buy-infusoria.html - 54k - Cached - Similar pages

First Food For FryObtain enough from a fish tank or tap water to fill the algae culture .... Egg layer fry do need Infusoria and some of the species have such small mouths ...
pabs92.org/first_food.htm - 23k - Cached - Similar pages

How to Breed Tropical Fish: How to cultivate InfusoriaTo obtain infusoria, you take a handful of hay or dry leaves and place it into a ... This liquid should not be fed to fish fry because it contains a high ...
breedtropicalfish.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-cultivate-infusoria.html - 60k - Cached - Similar pages

How to Feed Newly Hatched Fish (Fry)To feed your fish, take up some of the water with a turkey baster or eye-dropper and drip the infusoria into your fry tank. Begin with a few drops and feed ...http://www.petplace.com/fish/how-to-...fry/page1.aspx - 88k - Cached - Similar pages

What do fish fry eat? - Yahoo! Answersfish fry, can eat a lot of stuff. It depends on the fish, they will eat infusoria, algae, First Bites, crushed flakes, Small Fry, bbs, other fish fry, ...
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071231084148AADeAsd - 36k - Cached - Similar pages

Ornamental Fish: Feeding the fish with infusoriaThe above is a general guide on how to feed fry with infusoria. What we must bear in mind is certain type of fish (fry) needs more detail guides. ...
zda-fishenthusiast.blogspot.com/2007/04/feeding-fish-with-infusoria.html - 58k - Cached - Similar pages

Doing a soil drench and doing is foliage spray different

Doing a soil drench and doing is foliage spray different as the soil drench is for soil life and a foliage spray is for the plants. So I'd recommend that more attention is paid to the mineral content of the foliage spray.

I'm not sure of the quantities here but the goal of aerated compost tea is to grow microbes. By providing air and nutrients in the tea, the microbes in the compost can multiply much like brewing beer or wine multiplies yeast. There are considerably fewer nutrients in compost tea than the original compost used to brew it. However there should be, if properly brewed, many orders of magnitude more microbes in the tea than there were in the compost.

I suppose it's possible that a 5 gallon batch might have more microbes than 10 tons of compost but I don't know for sure. All I know is that it works. The theory is that the compost microbes do the work of mobilizing nutrients and making them into forms that are available to the plant. Compost tea has very few nutrients in the traditional sense of NPK. The microbes are the key.

I would rather spread compost directly on my fields and I do every year. But there is never enough to go around and purchased compost is too expensive. If multiplying the microbes and spreading in tea can equal spreading compost in plant performance, then brewing tea is a compelling practice for sustainable agriculture, even more so now with the price of fertilizers. My tests indicate that compost tea can rival compost in improving plant performance.

Thanksfor posting "Barry Natchitoches"

Thanks for posting "Barry Natchitoches" I don't waste much time as a rule trying to answer those that won't study. I post links to those however that do study.

In nature you only have mulch not compost. Everything works its way into the soil below the mulch. If you have the material to compost then it takes about two years for compost to turn into the real end product not a few weeks like most think. After a few weeks you end up with nothing much using the so called quick composting methods. All the available sugars are used up as energy by the bacteria etc and the nitrogen content is also gone. You are left with a few minerals and very little of them along with the not readily digestible carbohydrates.

Bacteria and us are the same in as much as we both have to be fed so get a few months of food and stick in a heap for six months outside and keep it moist and then go back and see what you have left to eat after it has composted. Good luck on the new diet. You will certainly loose weight.

If you want to feed the soil then feed it with bacterial soup not indigestible carbohydrates and a few minerals.

I hate to work for little money so I use my brains. Compost heaps in general require effort to find the material, cart and care for and this time should be costed.

I would rather do other work and get paid decently and go out and buy concentrates and make up super feed for the soil life that will in turn get what ever is being grown to thrive.

Buy bulk dry mineral salts and make your own foliage sprays so the minerals get into the leaves and are not tied up in the soil through pH and so on.

I have a lot of study behind what I post and if you notice I link to answers rather than write as I know how to find the information as I know the subject.

I'm not sure of the quantities here but the goal of aerated compost tea is to grow microbes. By providing air and nutrients in the tea, the microbes in the compost can multiply much like brewing beer or wine multiplies yeast. There are considerably fewer nutrients in compost tea than the original compost used to brew it. However there should be, if properly brewed, many orders of magnitude more microbes in the tea than there were in the compost.

I suppose it's possible that a 5 gallon batch might have more microbes than 10 tons of compost but I don't know for sure. All I know is that it works. The theory is that the compost microbes do the work of mobilizing nutrients and making them into forms that are available to the plant. Compost tea has very few nutrients in the traditional sense of NPK. The microbes are the key.

I would rather spread compost directly on my fields and I do every year. But there is never enough to go around and purchased compost is too expensive. If multiplying the microbes and spreading in tea can equal spreading compost in plant performance, then brewing tea is a compelling practice for sustainable agriculture, even more so now with the price of fertilizers. My tests indicate that compost tea can rival compost in improving plant performance.

You are correct, the compost tea delivers a load of microbes to the soil or leaf surface. But the more microbes you have there to feed the plant, the more of the soil's nutrient that is converted (by the microbes, of course) into a form that the plants can digest.

So it is actually more correct to say that there is as much nutrient available to the blants after treatment with 5 gallons of compost tea as there is after treatment with 10 tons of compost.

Thanks for all your research and your links. I am reading through them right now.

I don't know a heck of a lot about the science behind all of this, though we have a master gardener in the west Tennessee area who understands it quite well and is trying to teach the rest of us. She is over in Hardeman County, but she teaches organic gardening classes here in Memphis. She is the one who first clued me into the role that microbes play in growing healthy food.

You are helping me to further develop my knowledge on this matter.

But I'll tell you one thing: since I started following that Hardeman County lady's advice - including her suggestion to use compost tea - my garden has boosted its yield considerably, and I don't have as many insect and disease problems either .

Potassium silicate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In horticulture, potassium silicate is used as a soluble source of potassium and silicon. It also makes the growing medium more alkaline. ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_silicate - 18k

Cheap and great for protecting against fungus.

SOLAR - Scott's Tips and Techniques
Potassium Silicate is an easy to use liquid that provides supplemental ... the sites of infection to form stronger, harder cell walls to deter the fungus. ...www.solarhydroponics.com/tips/tips0499.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Natural sprays can be made by mixing separately
or combing, garlic, neem, hot pepper or soap with water.
TRY ONE!
Described below is an examples of an organic
pesticide that can be homemade.
GARLIC SPRAY
Ingredients:
1 garlic bulb
1 quart of boiling water
1 medium onion
1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon liquid dish soap
Finely mince the garlic and onion. Mix all ingredients
except the soap and leave to stew for one hour. Add the
soap and you are finished. Your spray is now ready to be
used! The spray can be kept in the fridge for one week.
The recipe outlined above can also be used to
create a hot pepper spray. Just change the main ingredient to
hot pepper.

Are you familiar with this foliar spray mixture?

I use it -- it's part of the overall program she recommends for healthy, disease resistant food gardens.

My garden is doing at least 5 times or even 10 times better, since I went to doing things the way she recommends.

BTW: She also recommends a 3 to 4 inch organic mulch that consists of:

1/3 fresh grass clippings - but not any that come from chemically treated lawns,

1/3 crushed autumn leaves, and

1/3 wood chips or small, broken branches (this latter she recommends to keep the other materials from matting, and blocking off air and water flow through the mulch and to the surface of the soil).

Wood chip often needs to be left to age somewhere to leach out tannins and other stuff that makes worms move out of the garden as it burns them. So put your chips about a foot deep somewhere for about six months then combine it with the otherstuff after you see worms moving into it which they will do when it is nutral.
__________________
When we are in the service of our fellow beings,
We are in the service of our God.

Examples of Recipes

None of the following recipes are set in stone. We encourage every one
to experiment with different ratios and ingredients but keep in mind the
caveat that if a little is good, more is not necessarily better. These recipes
are just a good place to start.
The most appropriate recipe depends on the crop. Some crops grow
better in a bacteria dominated soil while others are more prolific in soil
with more fungi. Most plants like more of a balance. Regardless of the
ratio of organisms preferred by the target crop, tea must be made from
well-made, mature compost. High quality tea cannot be made from
low quality compost.
Crops like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, and
kohlrabi (cole crops and brassicas) prefer strongly bacterial tea. Where as
trees, shrubs, strawberries, rhododendrons, and vines, like tea with a
much higher level of fungi. Most other crops like ideal ranges of both
bacteria and fungi but not always an exact balance. Some crops such
as tomatoes and most grasses like 25 to 35 per cent more bacteria than
fungi but fescues, clover, and corn prefer a more even balance. Soil
types can also influence the best recipe choice. Grasses, for example,
growing in sand typically perform better after applying tea with equivalent
amounts of bacteria and fungi but the same plants growing in loam or
clay soil prefer a greater percentage of bacteria. Regardless of the type
organisms (bacteria or fungi) you are at tempting to grow, all of them need
trace minerals for metabolic functions. NCO offers Azomite, Feed Grade
to address those needs. Given the infinite number of variables in soils
and composts, added to the variations in climate, altitude, and crops,
there can be no one recipe that is ideal, which is why we encourage
experimentation. Having said that, here's what we suggest:
BALANCED TEA has a desirable range of both bacteria and fungi. This
tea is appropriate for many different crops. North Country Organics offers
a special Tea Compost and a blend of soluble aerobe foods to feed and
grow populations of compost organisms. Tea from our Tea Compost can
be made more fungal or more bacterial by adding our special boosters
that favor one group of organisms over the other. Biological analysis
shows that high populations of both exist in our Tea Compost (analysis
available upon request). Use 3 cups of compost for 5 gallons of tea,
4 cups for 7 gallons of tea, or 5 cups for 12 gallons of tea. To make a
20 gallon batch, add 4 cups of compost to the brewing chamber twice
(8 cups total) 15 minutes apart and to make 25-30 gallons, add 5 cups
of compost twice, 30 minutes apart. Use ½ ounce of both the Bacteria
Booster and Fungi Booster and 5 tablespoons of Azomite, Feed Grade
(per 5 gallons of tea).
BACTERIAL TEA - Foods like molasses, fruit pulp and juices, protein
favor bacterial growth and can be added to the brewer to proliferate bacteria 1 - 1½ ounces of molasses or other sugars along with ½ - 1 ounce
of pre-dissolved, soluble seaweed, and ¼ - ½ ounce of fish emulsion or
fish hydrolysate (per 5 gallons of tea) should be added to grow populations of bacteria. Or, try one ounce of our special Bacteria Booster and
5 tablespoons of Azomite, Feed Grade (per 5 gallons of tea).
FUNGAL TEA - Add ½ - 1½ ounce of pre-dissolved soluble seaweed
extract, ½ ounce of fish hydrolysate, and ½ - 1½ ounces of pre-dissolved
humic acid (per 5 gallons) to grow populations of fungi. Or, try one ounce
of our Fungi Booster and 5 tablespoons of Azomite, Feed Grade (per 5
gallons of tea).
NOTE: There are many food or feed grade materials can be used to
enhance compost tea but nothing with preservatives should be added
to tea and use only small doses of new ingredients at a time. It's not
difficult to ruin an entire batch of tea by adding too many nutrients. Foul
smells are the first sign of a tea gone bad.

Sea minerals

Introduction
by David Yarrow
Below are excepts from Sea Energy Agriculture, published in 1976 by Dr. Maynard Murray, a medical doctor who researched the crucial importance of minerals—especially trace elements—to plants and animals. Beginning in 1936, through the 40's and into the 60's, Dr. Murray used sea solids as fertilizer on a variety of vegetables, fruits and grains. Sea solids are mineral salts remaining after water is evaporated from ocean water. Dr. Murray's extensive experiments demonstrated repeatedly and conclusively that plants fertilized with sea solids, and animals fed sea-solid-fertilized feeds grow stronger and resist disease.

His conclusion, in his own words:

"My research clearly indicates the reason Americans generally lack a complete physiological chemistry is that the balanced, essential elements of the soil have eroded to the sea. Consequently, crops are nutritionally poor, and the animals eating these plants are, therefore, nutritionally poor. We must alter the way we grow our food, the way we protect our plants from pests and disease, and the way we process our food. From the start, my sea solids experiments produced excellent results, and it has now been conclusively proven that the proportions of the trace minerals and elements present in sea water are optimum for the growth and health of both land and sea life."

.................................................. .................................................. ..............................................
Go here to link to read about Sea minerals. Sea minerals is the brine that is left when sodium chloride is skinned off sun evaporated salt beds for use as table salt. It used to be available cheaply in Australia once.

It is a bit hard for most to understand but it is actually simple.

It is a bit hard for most to understand but it is actually simple. If you wanted to eat a chicken when would you want to eat it? After it was killed cleaned and cooked or after it had been composted. If you waited till after it had been composted you would have no meat left and very little bacterial numbers also.

Now bacteria, fungi and other soil life that release minerals from the soil need food not something that has already been eaten. Try mixing up a raw egg in a blender first and then mixing it into a gallon of water and watering it into the soil around fast growing plants. Do this every couple of weeks for a while and see the changes in the plants fed. You will notice that the plants will put on new growth for a couple of weeks and then slow up but hold the new growth. This has to be done in the growing season of course. You can do it now on winter greens.

Now if you had done the same to the compost heap and waited a few months then the result of the egg would be only from its mineral content of the egg full stop.

You want the biological activity in the soil where you are growing plants not in the compost heap.

Can you give us some details of what you do:
how you make it
how you apply it
what your results are?

I find the articles interesting, but want to hear from someone who has real experience doing it.

I have rigged a simple compost tea brewer using a 5 gallon bucket, but it is quite crude since I have no mechanical abilities. It uses a ladies knee high stocking as a "tea bag" and the "aerator" is me and/or my wife stirring it frequently as it "brews." We feed the growing microbial population a mixture of liquid kelp, molasses, and canned macarel fish if I remember right. (My wife actually does the "brewing," not me, so I am not sure but I think that is right).

It must work really well in my garden, cuz my vegetable garden produces in leaps and bounds -- I have tomato plants so large that I've had a problem with birds building nests in two of the plants. (Of course, I never sucker my tomatoes, so that allows for growth of lots of foilage anyway). I have enough veggies growing in my small, suburban yard to fill many, many canning jars and STILL sell at a farmer's market out in the countryside.

My wife has "hinted" that she wants one of those commercially built, 10 gallon compost tea brewers -- one like Martha Stewart's gardeners use on her gardens. She dedicated an entire show to compost tea back early spring of 2008. My wife taped it.

(P.S. Don't let my wife read this thread, cuz Santa just might be delivering her the compost tea brewer she wants. If it's good enough for Martha Stewart, then it's good enough for my DW.)

God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and fish... all before making a human. He made and provided what we'd need before we were born. These are best & more powerful when eaten raw. We're such slow learners...
God left us a great clue as to what foods help what part of our body!A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the res earch shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart.. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, u pper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.Avocadoes, Eggplant and Pearstarget the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents c e rvical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only s tudied and named about 141 of them).Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.Sweet Potatoes look like the pa ncreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.Olives assist the health and function of the ovariesOranges, Grapefruits, and otherCitrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.Onions look like the body's cells. Today's research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. The y even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

Trump won 2626 counties
Hillary won 487 counties
In 2018, all 435 U.S. House Members and 34 U.S. Senators are up for reelection.

Herbgarden your mix is high in nitrogen if it is fresh.

Herbgarden your mix is high in nitrogen if it is fresh. If it is old then it will be low in nitrogen. Anyway you need to add molasses to balance the nitrogen to get good bacterial growth. Kelp will give you trace minerals. If it is old manure then add fish etc for nitrogen. Compost tea is ready in 12 to 24 hours. I get the feeling you are composting a lot longer. Also the water temperature should be around 85 degrees centigrade. An aquarium heater is good for getting the temperature up and maintaining it. Keep in mind that the aquarium heater will need to be turned off a few hours before it is exposed to the air. This means that you don't drain the compost tea with the heater on. An aerator stone and an aquarium air pump is good to circulate the hot water about your compost tea.

I would provided your manure is from a clean source make a batch up in 24 hours and spread around the soil on one half of the plants you want to feed after sieving out the bigger particles which can be thrown on a compost heap to break down more.

Barry, said his wife uses below!

"We feed the growing microbial population a mixture of liquid kelp, molasses, and canned macarel fish if I remember right."

(It is important to note that COMPOST TEA AND MANURE TEA ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Manure teas may be made in the same way but are not generally recommended as foliar sprays and are not as nutritionally well-balanced.)

Recent research indicates that using some kind of aereation and adding a sugar source (unsulphered molasses works well) results in an excellent product that extrcts the maximum number of benificial organisms. This aereation is crucial to the formation of benefical bacteria and the required fermentation process.

Could Compost Tea be made with just cow manure?

we have access to cow manure from local farms. if i add 5 or 10 gal of manure to a 50 gal tank of water, a few ounces of molasses, and add an air bubbler to keep it aerated .. will i be far off from making a decent tea? i could add in some weeds and other stuff of course. i'm just not much into calculating the percentages of stuff for an "ideal" compost, and dont have the time either.

spread the end product in the late afternoon not morning.

I don't have the time just now but half a gallon to a gallon of molasses would get you a reasonable mix. A few 200 to 300 watt aquarium heater should get the temperature up. Use some heated water to start the process. Throw in a biological bacterial additive used for septic tanks and spread the end product in the late afternoon not morning.

We produce aerated compost tea here at our farm for application to our pastures and hay fields. We start with 260 gallons in a 275 IBC tote with the top cut off. We use our own compost which is verified for its microbial content with a microscope. It is very important to used finished compost and not manure. Manure contains pathogens and you could very likely grow those pathogens and you don't want that on your food.

Our recipe adds 1/2 gallon of fish hydrolysate and one gallon of humate concentrate. We use a Bobolater with aerator and an extra aerator to ensure proper aeration and mixing. We brew at room temperature for 48 hours to obtain high numbers of fungal hyphae. This is verified by microscope. Then the recipe is drained by gravity into a sprayer rig that I designed. The tea is applied within 2 hours to the fields.

We tested purchased compost and found that fungal and microbal numbers were sadly lacking in what is available in my area. A microscope is critical to determine if your compost is active enough and if your tea actually contains desired microbes.

Saveamerica: using raw manure is asking for problems. You really need compost. Also 1/2 gallon of molasses is far too much for a 50 gal. tank. This will cause an overly rich environment that encourages too much bacterial growth and even with good aeration the batch will go aneraobic and will stink badly. Bad smells mean anerobic bacteria which aren't the desired bacteria. E-Coli is one example of a bad anerobic bacteria and you don't want that on your food.

That is not to say that manure teas are all bad. Here are a few definitions:

Manure mixed with water is a manure tea or manure extract.
Compost mixed with water is a compost extract.
Compost mixed with water, bacterial food like molasses, and added air is aerated compost tea or ACT.

Compost tea and extract are safe to use on the garden as long as there is some time to go before harvest. The new organic regulations go way too far regarding waiting times before harvest: up to 120 days for leafy greens and 90 days for vegetables. I apply ACT to my garden about 30 days before harvest. I couldn't sell this produce as organic but I do eat it. I'm also very sure of the quality and safety of my ACT, however.

I wouldn't hesitate to use manure tea as long as it is treated like raw manure. I would only apply on bare soil 30 days or more prior to planting.

For more information about ACT, I highly recommend Jeff Lowenthal's book "Teaming with Microbes" and Dr. Elaine Ingham's "Compost Tea Manual". The latter has excellent recipes for ACT. Jeff and Dr. Ingham regularly post on the Yahoo Compost Tea list and the list is a great place to learn more about aerated compost tea.

I use ACTIZYME (pellets

I use ACTIZYME (pellets) The bacterial mix performs in oxygenated water down to water with very little free oxygen. They are called facultative bacteria. The bacteria used in Actizyme pellets are bacillus bacteria from memory. If you use such products then the bad guys are displaced. The product is available in the US and Canada. Bacteria only have a short life but dried spores have a long life. Cattle will not touch grass grown on fresh manure probably because of the nitrate level. When you mix up a concentrate then you can water it down to spread.

I live in China where hygiene is just not considered much. At many bus stations toilets you pee in a bucket and that goes straight to the farmers.

In the US they were using chicken poo to feed cattle up until a short while back.

I am not saying be stupid but as when US forces went into Japan as occupation forces after the second world war they started to die like flies. It was traced to the use of human manure used in the market gardens in Japan The Americans then started hydroponic green houses to feed their own troops greens etc. The locals had immunity to their local bugs but the Americans didn’t.

If you come to many places in Asia and live in country areas then it is common to get sick very often until you build up some immunity to the local bugs.

The trouble with all this talk on liquid manure

.

The trouble with all this talk on liquid manure is that the normal safe way of using it time wise you end up with a few minerals and little else the same as compost. You are just composting it in water instead of in a heap. You are not getting compost tea if you keep brewing beyond a couple of days.

The idea of compost tea is to get bacteria and fungi cultures kick started to add to the food chain in the soil as food (bacteria and fungi are food for other bacteria and soil invertebrates) along with some of the uneaten culture medium. (stuff like fish lets call it soup. carbohydrates etc.) You are relying upon the soil life in the soil to make available more minerals to what is growing (crop, vegetables etc) directly from what is already in the soil. You have the additional minerals in the molasses and fish etc that you are adding also. I like the use of good rock dusts myself alone with the compost tea.

So please don't think you are producing compost tea if you are brewing past a couple of days as you won't be.

If you wanted to be super safe with manures then compost in liquid for the safe time filter the end product and then add goodies like fish soup and molasses etc and re-compost for 24 hours. If you add these products at the beginning when composting manure in water then these additives will just get used up as energy in the composting of the manure to no real advantage. Remember we ourselves eat food for energy and to maintain body heat, bacteria are no different. I keep hammering this point as I know that those who are stuck on compost do not understand this concept.

The use of Actizyme to limit anerobic growth sounds like an excellent idea. Because we are certified organic there are strict limits on what I can put in a tea batch. Every ingredient needs to be organic. I would have to check to see if Actizyme is organic.

For this reason, soluble kelp, a common tea ingredient, is prohibited. I use ground whole kelp as a soil amendment and as a cattle supplement. It is organic approved because it is sustainably harvested and processed. Soluble kelp is derived from whole kelp by solvent extraction with hydrocarbon solvents. Hydrocarbon solvents are not suitable for sustainability and contamination concerns.

Humate concentrates are acceptable for organic production. They are extracted from leonardite deposits using an hydroxide based process that does not leave hydrocarbon residues. Our fish hydrolysate is enzyme processed and preserved with phosphoric acid. I'm not happy with the phospate levels of this product but it is approved for organic production.

The key thing to remember about compost tea is that it is the process of multiplying the beneficial compost bacteria much like brewing beer or wine. This is why the microscope is critical. You must determine that the bacteria and fungi are present in the starting compost and you must identify that they are present in your final product. The ingredients added to the compost tea are there to grow bacteria, not to fertilize the field. We add fish hydrolysate as food for the bacteria. Molasses is also a common and effective bacterial food. We add humate concentrate as a vitamin supplement for the bacteria and it assists in providing nutrients and minerals for bacterial growth.

We do a water extraction of a compost sample to determine if the bacteria are present before we use a batch. Then we do a sample of the tea after brewing. After brewing, there is an amazing bacterial content in the tea at much higher concentrations that even in the original compost! It is literally a billion billion fold increase in beneficial soil bacteria. In this way we convert a 15 gallon load of compost into a 260 gallon tank of highly concentrated soil bacteria.

This multiplication is the real power of compost tea. There is never enough compost to go around. Most of our composted manure is spread directly on the fields in the spring. But I reserve a small amount for brewing and continue to spread compost in the form of tea throughout the growing season.

I used to talk a fair bit with the Actizyme people back in Australia

I used to talk a fair bit with the Actizyme people back in Australia. They used to have particulars on the Net of what was used and the types of bacteria were in the product. The ingredients they used were food grade but they wouldn't be from organic produce. I and other people have been swallowing their pellets for many years. Facultative bacteria are bacteria that can change how they breathe to suite different oxygen conditions. They have to be able to do this to function in septic systems.

PRITAN / MYTEC (powder)
Selection of bacteria and enzymes specially designed to help make compost used in mushroom production. areas of use: making mushroom compost (using the Pritan system). features: reduced odour, better yields, less pollution from water run off, consistent compost, less composting time.

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